Pir 91

[Stephen]

Beginning is always the problem so I’ll dive right in. I’d like to start with a few comments about the opening pages of PIR 91. There are some superb poems here, I’d like to draw special attention to Aileen Kelly’s two poems, Mark Granier’s poems, Afric Hamilton’s poem and Rodney Pybus’ poem. Those stood out most for me. I would have liked to have seen more space for new poetry, but hell, I’m not complaining as Peter signs out with his trademark translation piece; though this time a lot longer.

For me, it is a bold move to give up almost a third of a journal that is limited to about 120pages to translation. You can argue that Peter is on his way out, it’s his last issue, he has nothing to lose. I don’t agree. Translation, or a degree of translation in PI was also a staple of a Peter Sirr issue. And I think that this time, approving a translation section rather than snippets from one or two poets is a great success.

The translations in the Spanish section are top quality. My only complaint is that I would have loved to have read all the poems in bilingually but I understand that space takes priority. The feature by Miguel Casado offers a brief an interesting introduction about each of the six poets and their poetic stances.